Rufus Turner was not a patient man. He especially had little patience for dumbass kids that brought their friends along on hunts.
"Is he a hunter?" Rufus asked, leaning back on his car eyeing the man. He was short and scrawny. His face held a little stubble on it. His eyes reminded Rufus of a girl he hooked up with in Columbia. Then the kid was wearing a suit with a crooked tie, and a rumpled trench coat.
"Of sorts." Dean Winchester answered him. Rufus scowled at the elder Winchester.
Sam moved forward. "Look Rufus, he's the best we've got. Bobby can vogue for him."
"And you think I trust what he says?" Rufus demanded. He nursed his beer and glanced the man over again. "I guess he'll do. It's not like we have anything better. What's your name?"
"Castiel." The blue-eyed wonder answered.
"That's one odd ass name, kid. Were your parents drunk when they named you or something?" Rufus laughed.
He cracked a smile as the Winchester's buddy got all puffed up at the insult to his name.
"We call him Cas." Dean said, and nodded at his friend. "What do you have, already?"
Rufus sighed and reached for his duffel bag. He pulled the files out and laid them on the car.
"Four human corpses mutilated in the past three days. All different sexes, races, hair color, eye, color, hell they have nothing in common. Except for the fact that they all worked for the same auto repair shop."
"Worked?" Sam asked.
"The place was shut down a couple of months ago. They had some sort of lawsuit and the owner lost everything, and he ended up putting a round in his head."
"What did the employees have to do with it?" Dean asked.
"Case is locked shut, but I managed to get a few details. They were apparently screwing around and dropped some boxes off of a forklift onto a road, where a car hit them and wrecked. Guy broke his leg and sued them for everything the owner had."
"So before the guy died he made sure that the idiots responsible for him losing everything were going to get what was coming to them. Do we have an idea what it is that's killing all the people off?" Said Dean.
"I know exactly what it is." Rufus said, taking another sip of his beer.
"Then what is it?" Sam asked.
"Hell hound." Rufus grimaced.
"Shit." Dean said, and sat back against an old car.
"How did this guy get a hell hound on a leash?" Sam asked. Still remembering the last time they had dealt with a hell hound.
"My guess he made a deal with a demon. Put out a hit list and when he bit the bullet the demon set it loose." Rufus told them.
"So what do we do now?" Dean asked.
"We kill it." Castiel finally spoke up.
"Yeah, no shit Sherlock. How do we kill it, other using a bomb?" Rufus glared at Dean and Sam. He blamed them for Ellen and Joe's death. Even though it wasn't technically their fault…it was still somehow their fault.
"Get me close enough to the hound and I'll take care of it." Cas told them, classic stick up the ass.
"Oh you will, will you?" Rufus teased.
"Just help us find it and he'll take care of it." Dean glared at him, daring him to say something.
"I'd like to see how that's going to work out." Rufus said, finishing his beer and tossing it on the dirt. "Well let's get going then, instead of sitting around on our asses.
"Are you sure you can handle this, Cas?" Rufus heard Dean asking his friend.
"I'll be fine, Dean."
"Your mojo has been all out of whack lately…"
"Dean." Cas sighed.
"Are we ready yet?" Rufus butted in.
"We are ready to proceed. Have you found it yet?" Cas asked him.
"Yeah, wasn't easy figuring out how to find a hell hound, but I'm known for doing the impossible." Rufus grinned.
"So we just get you close to it or something and you'll take care of it, or what?" Rufus asked.
"Yes, just stay back." Cas told them.
"Fine with me, always like the easy hunts." Rufus laid back in a chair.
"Hold on," Dean said, raising his protest, "We are coming with you."
His friend scoffed and gave the Winchester a bewildered look.
"Dean-" Cas tried to reason with the man.
"We're going."
And be dammed if anyone was going to say anything to him.
Rufus groaned and stood up out of his chair. He grabbed his shot gun, and threw the strap over his shoulder.
"Then move out, ladies."
Rufus laid low in the bushes, watching Cas circle around air, supposedly the hell hound. He had some fancy silver sword thingy in his hands that was posed to attack the beast. Rufus wasn't stupid; he'd seen what happens when hunters go up against things like that and had their mind filled with the idea that they were invincible.
This wasn't going to end well.
He could see Dean and Sam watching from the opposite side of the entertainment. They looked tense, like the slightest little thing was going to make them jump to their friend's rescue.
His stomach dropped as the stupid kid made a move to attack the hound. As much as he couldn't stand him, he didn't want to see him die bloody. He'd seen too much death lately.
Cas slashed with his flashy sword. Black goo fell to the ground, and a pained howl filled the air. The kid had actually managed to hit the hound, but now it was pissed.
A growl ruffled the kid's hair and he moved to hit it with his sword again, but was thrown back violently a few hundred feet into a rock. His sword flew out to the side, away from him and completely out of his reach.
Rufus was ready to move, but he caught Dean trying to move out into the fight. Sam held him back, and motioned across to him to stay put.
He wasn't happy with the idea of watching the kid get torn to shreds, but maybe the Winchesters knew something that he didn't.
Cas sat up, and was suddenly pushed back on the ground. He reached out trying to find his sword. Rufus cursed and shook his head when the hound released a howl.
Gashes appeared across the kid's abdomen, and Rufus prayed for it to end quickly. It was a fatal wound that no human could survive. He'd been right all along that this kid was going to die, but he trusted the Winchesters. It was the last mistake he was going to make.
"Cas!" Dean gave an agonized shout.
Rufus shot out of his cover and started firing at the hound.
"Rufus, don't!" Sam yelled at him. The younger Winchester cursed, and ran out to help him.
He shot the hound several times. It distracted it enough to get it away from the kid, but it turned its attention to him.
Thankfully, the Winchesters took their turns shooting it. It gave him enough time to make a beeline for Cas' special sword.
Rufus heard Sam shout a warning for Dean and as he looked over, he saw Dean hit the ground.
Dean was going to die via hellhound again, and Bobby was going to kill him for going along with this stupid plan.
Suddenly, Cas appeared beside Dean and raised his palm out. A blinding white light exploded, and Rufus had to shield his eyes. When everything cleared, a pile of ash remained in the field and Cas swayed dangerously above it.
Cas fell backwards, and Sam ran to catch him before he could hit the ground.
"Cas!" He exclaimed.
Dean pushed himself off of the ground, notably shaky, and he looked over to his friend.
"Shit." He cursed voice hoarse. His eyes took in the damage to his friend's torso and his face pinched in worry.
Rufus had other concerns, though. Whatever Cas was, he wasn't human. That was a problem.
He picked up the sword and walked over to the group. Dean placed Cas' head in his lap, while Sam worked to stench the blood flow.
He raised the sword and pointed down at Cas.
"What the hell are you?" He growled.
Dean glared up angrily at him.
"He's an angel, Rufus. He's the one who pulled Dean out of hell." Sam said, hurriedly.
Rufus' mouth fell open in shock.
"You think you could've mentioned this to me before now!" He yelled.
Dean turned his attention back down to the angel in his arms.
"You said you could handle this."
"I did." Cas coughed back at him.
"Why aren't you healing?" Sam asked.
"I've drained my powers killing the hellhound, I don't have enough energy left to heal." He stated.
Dean's face lit up with panic.
"If you don't heal you'll die, Cas. Y..You have to try something." He pleaded.
Rufus shrugged off his jacket and gave it to Sam.
"Wrap it up tight, I'll drive us back to Bobby's. You think you can make it that long?" Rufus asked Cas.
"I won't die." Cas told them.
"I don't believe it." Dean growled.
Together they got Cas back to Rufu's car and he drove them back to Sioux Falls. Dean and Sam stayed in the back seat, both keeping pressure on their friend's wounds.
Rufus could tell that the angel didn't like the mothering, and personally, he was just glad the stupid bastard angel was alive.
"Quit squirming." Bobby admonished the angel, strewn out over his kitchen table.
Together, Sam, Dean, and Bobby were working on sewing up the large gashes in Cas' torso. The kitchen was a mess of blood and gauze, but he'd know it'd seen worse.
"I feel the pain." He told them.
Rufus figured he was missing out on the important meaning of that.
Dean's face fell and he glanced down mournfully at his friend.
"You think you could've told me about this before is signed up for this job, Bobby?" Rufus glared at the old man.
"Would you have done it if I told you we had an angel on our team?" Bobby challenged.
Sam stood up and stretched his back. "We've closed the gashes as best we could; you just need to heal them, Cas."
"I should be fine within a few hours." Cas told him. He glances down at himself covered in bandages.
"Yeah well till then, you're not moving. You're staying in the guest room until you've got your mojo back." Dean told him, firmly.
"Dean-"
"I meant it! No god hunting, or flitting of to remote parts of the planet." The older Winchester sounded as if he was scolding a small child, instead of an angel of the lord.
Cas sighed and sunk back down, onto the table.
"As you wish."
Later that night, with Sam snoring on the couch, Bobby in his room, and Dean on the floor not far from the guest room, Rufus tried drifting off to sleep on a pallet by the window. Today had been one hell of a day, and this was just the start of it. The apocalypse had begun and it was up to them to stop it. But hell with two stupid kids, an old fart, and angel of the lord, and himself, they were bound to make something happen.
"Rufus, old boy, what have you gotten yourself into?"
He quietly drifted off to sleep. The next day Bobby got word of a case in Louisiana, and Rufus headed down to the bayou to take care of a vampire's nest. Castiel finally healed his wounds, and took off on his search for God (saying thank you to the Winchesters and their surrogate father for taking care of him.)
Dean made everyone to promise to check in at least once a week, including Castiel. Sam started researching for some way to end the mess he had started. Bobby was working on getting cases to hunter's that called up.
Dean stayed in the yard of Singer Salvage and washed the grit off of his Baby, wondering how they could stop all this and just get back to doing simple hunts.
Meanwhile, Rufus hooked up with a woman named Marcy in New Orlands, and he soon found himself without any money, guns or pants. Thankfully, he had an angel to call on for help.